Featured Poet: Nidia Hernández
Nidia Hernández was born in Venezuela and has been living in the US since 2018. She is a poet and translator of Portuguese poetry, editor, broadcaster, poetry curator, and radio producer. Nidia directs the editorial project lamajadesnuda.com, which won the 2011 WSA prize for Cultural Heritage. She curates Poesiaudio for Arrowsmith Press, and is a contributor for Mercurius Magazine. Hernández won the Sundara Ramaswamy Prize 2021 for her assemblage of The Land of Mild Light, the selected poems of Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas, and in 2022 edited The Invisible Borders of Time: Five Female Latin American Poets. She has presented works drawn from the 34 years of her radio program (also called La maja desnuda) which has more than 1,768 broadcasts. Currently, she is broadcasting the program through UPV Radio 102.5 FM in Valencia, Spain. In 2023 she was invited to serve on the board of the New England Poetry Club. Her first book in English translation will appear in the spring of 2024, published by Arrowsmith Press.
An Introduction by Askold Melnyczuk:
THE INVISIBLE GOODS OF NIDIA HERNÁNDEZ
When my friend, the poet Marie Howe, wrote and asked me to meet her pal Nidia, newly arrived in Boston from Caracas via Miami, I was happy to oblige. In Venezuela, Nidia had for over three decades hosted an award-winning radio program about the poetries of the world, La maja desnuda. Its unfolding archive remains active online at https://www.lamajadesnuda.com/
We met for coffee at the Fogg Museum in Cambridge. Nidia explained that the political regime in Caracas had transformed her radio station into a propaganda channel, and that for a while she'd been operating out of Spain. She also told me, in a phrase I've never forgotten, that she had devoted her life to "accumulating invisible goods." By this she meant the kind of goods that come from devoting one's self wholeheartedly to one art. If the art sometimes involves disastrous losses, it also offers immutable compensations: great poetry is language in a state of grace, inviting readers into its charmed circle. Nidia has spent a lifetime at its center, absorbing its energies.
That was three years ago. In that time, Nidia's accumulation of "invisible good" has yielded a bimonthly series of Spanish poetry via the "Poesiaudio" feature on Arrowsmith's website, along with two books, the first English-Language edition of a selected poems by Venezuela's grandmaster, the Cervantes' Prize winning poet, Rafael Cadenas, and an anthology, Five Latin American Women Poets.
It took months of prodding for Nidia to let me read some of her own work. Each time I asked, she demurred. She was poetry's handmaiden, that was all. When at last she relented, I was thrilled and even a little astonished to discover that the invisible goods she had been incubating for decades had the heart, the depth, the wit, and the charm of the very best of this one not-so-sullen craft and art. It's a pleasure to introduce American readers to Nidia Hernandez, poet, here beautifully rendered into English by the great Spanish-language translator, Rowena Hill.
- Askold Melnyczuk
October 9, 2023
Our song
The cat denies
the passage of time
a glow turns everything pink
I wait in silence
for the night’s eraser
to lessen its shadows
for everything to change
If in the sky
if in space
one of Saturn’s rings
will soon be a moon
it’s possible that today
if I call you
your nearness
will place me at one step
from the subtle breath
that unites souls
and works miracles
that it will rain
that the water dripping
will be our song.
The fire on the mountain
I began to hear the fire
and how its golden mane
was spreading
there was a great drought
the fire in the trees
in the bamboos
where are the dogs?
where is señor Mario?
I went out with a pot full of water
the biggest I could carry
the fire was spreading its huge arms wide
unfurling its impatient peaks
a vortex was whistling in the wind
its flames rose to infinity
they were the color of the stars
I saw the fire inside
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing
I looked into its eyes
for an instant it stopped
it saw me too
out of my smallness I said
‘you are beautiful’
it no longer mattered
if everything burned
or if I had something
to learn from the ashes
‘you are a king
do as you like’
It picked up the void with its quartzes
turned on itself
and fled away like lightning
its flames
its corona
maybe felt sorry
for my water and my pot.
Secret
Who can stare
at a star
from nightfall
until dawn
without glancing aside
so as not to see
all that’s gone?
A squirrel in the tree
diligently extracts a fruit
a motionless owl
plans what happened centuries ago
the moon hangs her reflection
from the sky
Who can by just wishing
dwell in this secret chamber?
the moon sunk in the lake
flickers that equation.
The sea and emptiness
What I thought lost
is in the light of this dawn
I’m not alone
emptiness is only emptiness
the sea speaks to me
I listen and assent
I touch distance
the horizon dissolved in the ocean
wets my fingers
I say your name
there’s a journey to be taken
stars to contemplate
I walk into the sea
in slow motion.
Mare Imbrium
Moon
what are you telling me on your crescent
quarter night?
what are you telling me
in a quarter of a second?
When we dream
we merge with your shadow
waning and foreign
with the veiled water
of your lunar mantle
when we dream
we spin with you
trying to rest
on your foam pillow
where we are equations
where we are
rings in space.
The same language
Although I’m a foreigner
in an alien country
my soul’s story
can cohabit
with all languages
This confirms
that someone
can translate
darkness
the abyss
orphanhood
and the light that settles on the water
even if they are
disoriented in a different tongue
If not understanding each other is the constant
why should not speaking the same language
have to be a disaster?
The Paleolithic Moon
It’s early
in the street crowded with people
there’s no sign of calm
We’re all foreigners
from the way we move
trying to match the rotational
axis of this place
a man looks into the shops
and ends up with a lost expression
the hole of being in error goes with him
he tries to outwit it
but maybe it’s the black hole
I look for the number 1718 running out of time
in this beautiful city where the houses
are from a film
Haste here has the meaning
of a delayed ship
with passengers that don’t want to arrive
because they no longer have homes
If it was night
the measurable phases
of the moon
and the longest moon
the Paleolithic moon
would be our home.
The meaning of the world
Someone knocked on the door
I wasn’t going to open it
I was translating glimmers
but I looked out of the window
and a shower of white stars
was falling
and drawing
the meaning of the world
my third snowfall in Boston
there was a great pause
the snow
generative
fractal
elegant
was opening its curtains.
All translation by Rowena Hill
Nuestra canción
El gato desmiente
el paso del tiempo
una lumbre adorna todo de rosa
yo espero silente
que el borrador de la noche
disminuya sus sombras
que todo cambie
si en el cielo
si en el espacio
un anillo de Saturno
será luna en breve
es posible que hoy
si te llamo
tu cercanía
me ponga a un paso
del delicado soplo
que reúne a las almas
y obra milagros
que llueva
que el goteo del agua
sea nuestra canción
El incendio en la montaña
Comencé a oír el fuego
y cómo su cabellera de oro
se iba expandiendo
Había una gran sequía
El fuego en los árboles
en los bambúes
¿dónde están los perros?
¿dónde el señor Mario?
Salí con una olla llena de agua
la más grande que podía cargar
el fuego abría enorme sus brazos
desplegaba sus picos impacientes
silbaba un remolino en el viento
sus llamas se elevaban infinitas
tenían el color de las estrellas
vi el fuego por dentro
no podía creer lo que miraba
lo vi a los ojos
por un instante se detuvo
él también me vio
desde mi pequeñez le dije:
-Eres hermoso
ya no importaba
si se quemaba todo
o si tenía algo
que aprender de las cenizas
-Eres un Rey
haz lo que quieras
Recogió el vacío con sus cuarzos
giró sobre sí mismo
y se alejó como un relámpago
Sus llamas
su corona
tal vez se condolieron
de mi agua y de mi olla
Secreto
¿Quien puede mirar
fijamente una estrella
desde el anochecer
hasta el amanecer
sin mirar a los lados
para no ver
todo lo que se fue?
Una ardilla en el árbol
extrae diligente un fruto
un búho inmóvil
planea lo que pasó hace siglos
la luna cuelga del cielo
su reflejo
¿quién puede con sólo desearlo
morar en esa cámara secreta?
La luna sumergida en el lago
titila esa ecuación
El mar y la nada
Lo que creí perdido
está en la luz de este amanecer
No estoy sola
la nada es sólo la nada
el mar me habla
lo escucho y asiento
Toco la distancia
el horizonte disuelto en el océano
moja mis dedos
Digo tu nombre
hay un viaje por hacer
astros que contemplar
entro al mar
en cámara lenta
Mare Imbrium
Luna,
¿Qué me dices esta noche
de cuarto creciente?
¿Qué me dices
en un cuarto de segundo?
Cuando soñamos
nos mezclamos con tu sombra
Menguante y extranjera
Con el agua velada
de tu manto lunar
Cuando soñamos
Giramos contigo
buscando descansar
en tu almohada de espuma
donde somos ecuaciones
donde somos
aros del espacio
El mismo idioma
Aunque soy una foránea
en un país ajeno
el relato de mi alma
puede convivir
con todos los idiomas
Esto confirma
que alguien
puede traducir
la oscuridad
el abismo
la orfandad
y la luz que se posa en el agua
aun si estás
desorientada en otra lengua
si no entenderse es la constante
¿porqué no hablar el mismo idioma
tiene que ser un desastre?
La luna paleolítica
Es temprano
en la calle llena de gente
no hay señal de sosiego
Todos somos extranjeros
por la forma en que nos movemos
tratando de igualar el eje
de rotación de este lugar
Un señor se asoma a los locales
y termina con cara de extraviado
El agujero de la equivocación lo acompaña
él trata de burlarlo
pero a lo mejor es el agujero negro
Yo busco el numero 1718 con el tiempo contado
en esta hermosa ciudad cuyas casas
son las de una película
La prisa aquí tiene el sentido
de un barco postergado
con pasajeros que no quieren llegar
porque ya no tienen casa
Si fuera de noche
las mensurables fases
de la luna
y la luna más larga
la luna Paleolítica
serían nuestro hogar
El sentido del mundo
Alguien tocó la puerta
no iba a abrir
traducía destellos
pero miré por la ventana
y caía
una lluvia de estrellas blancas
que dibujaban
el sentido del mundo
mi tercera nevada en Boston
hubo una gran pausa
la nieve
generativa
fractal
elegante
abría sus cortinas